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been told that we came to make slaves of
them and sell them at Jamaica.
soon got over this difficulty, for one of the
natives having come down upon us, we gave
him such fine presents, that he shortly
brought others, and those who had been our
greatest enemies’ soon became our best
friends. The naval department was under
the command of my captain ; and the soldiers
had for a leader as brave a man as ever
walked on Jand, one Major Polson. They
had a very uncomfortable berth of it in their
tents, which they fixed in a swampy and
unwholesome plain: in the day they were
grilled, and in the evening they were eaten ;
for the mosquitoes—you know Hunduras is
on the Mosquitoe shore—came buzzing and
biting by millions at a time; and the sand-
flies took their share of the good things thus
ponent provided for them by General
alling. These voracious devils had one
month’s good food; after which, we proceed-
ed along the shore to collect our friends
amongst the natives; they were to find us
boats, and to lend us a hand in the attack.
We reached the river San Juan on the
24th of March, perfectly under the guidance
of the Indians, for not a man of our party
had ever been up the river. Here Nelson
was to have given up the command; but he
was not the man to do that, for he knew
that the service was hazardous, and that
something desperate would be attempted :
86 he forgot his orders, and gave others for
the embarkation of the troops, two hundred
of which he placed on board the Mosquitoe
eraft and in two of our boats, and away we
started. But, as I said before,’the great
pecple at Jamaica ‘forgot that we should
arrive at the dry season; and we had hard
wouk to force the boats over the shallows,
and thus proceed up this narrowed and now
low river.. At last, after several days’
woik, the hardest and the hottest I remem-
ber, we got into deep water, and then had to
contend against rapids and currents. If it
had rot been for the Indians, we might have
turned back without doing any thing, for we
never should have found our way ; as it was,
those curious chaps and ourselves did all the|into which a branch of manchine
work, and the soldiers had enough to do to|
keep quiet and cool. It was the most infer-
nal hot expedition | ever was engaged in.
On the 9th of April we rea¢hed San Bar-
tolomeo, an island which the Spaniards had
fortified ; and although the battery itself was
a little semicircular affair, mounting only
nine or twelve swivels, and manned with
only eighteen men, yet it was so placed as,
to command the most rapid and difficult part
ofthe river. The battery gave us a warm
reception; and Nelson, in jumping out of
But we|I
before we commenced scientifi
BEN BRACE,
was 2 captain in the army; and his coxswain,
hope, was not much behindhand. We
made a dash at the battery and boarded it;
away jumped the Spaniards, and we gave
them a parting salute with their own guns.
This was child’s play ; for when a man gets
acrack from a shot, why it ’s what he ex-
pects, and that’s all in the regular service
line : but, Lord bless you! what ’s a grape-
shot to the yellow-fever ?
The castle of San Juan was only sixte er
miles above this battery on the island. When
we got within a few miles of it, we landed
the soldiers and the stores, and marched on
through a forest so thick that I really think
I got an inch thinner by jamming myself
between the trees, and we could not open
our eyes for snakes, which darted at us from
the boughs. I dare say there’s many a man
who does not believe this; but I tell you the
truth, that one of the men was bitten just
under the eye by one of these little devils,
and could not proceed for the pain; and that
when some of us, who missed him not five
minutes afterwards, went back to look after
him, we found him not only dead, but putrid.
Ay! I saw him myself putrid in five mi-
nutes ; and now that I ‘m writing my life, it
is not worth my while at my age to be tell-
ing lies like a play-actor, who calls himself
a king by candle-light. I remember that
one, day Nelson was very much fatigued,
and ordered his hammock, which was his
only bed, to be hung up between two trees,
and in he turned and was soon ,asleep—for
I often wondered how he kept awake. Theo
Indians were about the hammock, when one
saw a particular kind of lizard pass over his
face. The Indian awoke him directly, and
told him to get out; and there was one of
the most venomous serpents of the country
rolled up at his feet. ‘Travellers, I know,
are said to see strange things, and old sailors
are told that they spin galley-yarns; but it’s
just as true as that we aro here. These
lizards are called monitory lizards, because
they warn people that the serpent is too
close to be pleasant. After this, we nearly
lost our captain by his drinking some water
el had been
thrown ; and he never got the better of this
until his death.
The second day
day after our taking the first
fort, we came in si
n ght of the castle of San
Juan, and Nelson’ proposed immediately to
assault it; but he was overruled, and we
began a regular siege. We were ten days
Cc operations,
N
and just then the rains began. Never was
there 4 scene more dreadful to behold; even
the Indians could not stand it—they died
like dogs,
We had began on the 11th, and
the boat into the mud, was nearly stickin
there altogether, but extricated himself with
only the loss of his shoes. He was follow-
ed by that unfortunate man Despard, who
on the 24th the place surrendered. We now
thought our labors at an end, and fancied
that once in possession of the fort, we had
only to sit down and recover our fatigues ;